Sunday, February 14, 2010

Valentine...

So ...this is my favorite Valentine this year:


I really didn't know you could be more in love with someone.  That's not entirely true.  It was like this with his sister too.  Amazing how somehow through the sleep deprivation and craziness he can still steal my heart.


I'm sure you can see his eyes are goofy in this picture ...it actually made me take a closer look at him and realize that he has esotropia.  So off to the baby eye doctor we went ...we're currently patching his good eye two hours a day and hoping to strengthen the lazy eye ..which is just silly.  I mean honestly.  A seven month old with a pirate patch couldn't be cuter.  He doesn't actually seem to mind ...but he's getting some skin breakdown for it.  The eye doc also picked up an astigmatism ..so we're probably looking at glasses at some point in time.   Good thing I passed on vision insurance for him ...ha!

I moved his crib into our bedroom and attached it to our bed a la giant co-sleeper.  He still thinks his crib mattress is made of nails.  Amazing, really ...he's super sound asleep in our bed ...I slide him six inches over onto his mattress and he wakes up instantly.  I realize this is somehow my fault.  But seriously.  Six inches away??  And are any of you still swaddling a seven month old?   I'm sure this is going nowhere fast ...but the kid won't sleep without being swaddled.  It's so bad that now when I lay him down on his swaddle blanket he tucks his own arms into the sides to get ready to be wrapped up.  I've tried weaning him out of it...but even in it I'm lucky if he sleeps a solid two hours.  Very lucky.  I get mad...and then he does something silly like shake his head no for an hour and a half straight the day he learned how to do it and all of the lack of sleeping is forgotten.

Things have somewhat quieted down on the marriage front ...only because I'm not pushing any issues.  Which isn't good.  I feel like I'm letting things boil under the surface ...and then he does one little thing that any normal level headed person would blow off and I flip my lid.  Because seriously.  I can eat a cheeto in the living room. 

Right?

6 comments:

Amanda said...

You're depressing me about this sleep stuff. I thought by 7 months it was suppose to be better than that. The dream of decent sleep again is all that keeps me going.

Mine isn't much of a fan of the crib either, but I try to put him in it throughout the day (usually unsuccessfully) hoping that he will have less resistance to it, but he would prefer to be right next to me too.

Searching for Serenity said...

Oh my goodness. He is delicious!!

If you aren't already familiar, check out The IF Optimist @ http://tragicoptimist.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/just-so-were-clear/

Her daughter is an adorable spectable wearing doll. The IF Optimist has a site (right side bar) dedicated to children who wear glasses.

As for the sleeping. I had no idea how difficult it would be. We did the No-Cry sleep Solution method for two months. From age 4-6 months. He was still being swaddled, although he didn't want to be. So hearing that your little guy puts his arms next to his sides and waits for it, actually made me chuckle. We finally went cold turkey at 6 months and tossed the swaddle in exchange for a sleep sack. And did a modified version of the CIO method. It was hard. But after 3 nights we were resting much better. I fought and fought the idea of CIO. But desperation took over and we gave in. We started to let him cry for 2 minutes and by the third night he was able to calm himself after 18 minutes of crying. He now prefers to sleep on his tummy (butt in the air) and we're all resting well. Gosh, it was hard. I can totally empathize with your struggle.

Thanks for sharing the picture. It brightened my morning.

Searching for Serenity said...

oops, I meant to say spectacle. Not spectable.

April said...

i LOVE this picture :) soooo cute! and we're SO the same person. i was examining pictures of the kids b/c i saw stuff like this, too. i'm trying not to be too crazy about it all.

our kids have both been sleeping with us for the past several nights (yes, 4 people in a FULL bed) since everyone's been sick. :( it's crazy. they go down for naps great. but bedtime? that is another story and sometimes does good, othertimes? not so good. especially when they're sick.

i could go on and on. i miss you, can you tell? :)

oh. and btw: i had cheetos today with lunch. :)

White Picket Fences said...

Amanda ..he actually did spectacularly well with sleep until he was four months old. And then he gave up his pacifier out of the blue when he was six months and it's been a living hell since then. Maybe yours will be oppsite? Bad in the beginning ..better at the end. He slept all night in his crib until I made the fatal error of bringing him into our bed to nurse at 4 am and letting him stay there until we woke up for the day.

Serenity ...we've had a couple of nights of trying to CIO ..I'm a rotten failure at it. He cried for 3 hours the first night and I never made it past that. It took me two hours to calm him down. I think I half moved his crib into our room so I wouldn't be tempted to try again.

April ...ch ch check your blog lady.

JEN said...

adorable picture! Thank goodness my daughter loves her crib.